California Women's March posters and ephemera, 2017

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Summary

Creators:
Sutro Library Staff
Abstract:
The bulk of this collection consists of 288 posters collected from various Women’s Marches in California, plus some ephemera and artifacts that accompanied or supplements the posters. The ephemera includes testimonials, photographs, and media coverage. The artifacts include pussy hats, sashes, and pin-back buttons. The marches represented took place in Albany, Chico, Los Angeles, Oakland, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Santa Rosa; Californians also marched in Washington, DC.
Language:
English

Background

Scope and content:

The bulk of this collection consists of 288 posters collected from various Women’s Marches in California, plus some ephemera and artifacts that accompanied or supplements the posters. The ephemera includes testimonials, photographs, and media coverage. The artifacts include pussy hats, sashes, and pin-back buttons. The marches represented took place in Albany, Chico, Los Angeles, Oakland, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Santa Rosa; Californians also marched in Washington, DC.

The first series—Attachments, Photos, Ephemera, and Testimonials—are materials that were donated along with the posters. Attachments came affixed to individual posters and the folder title indicates which poster. Generally they identify the march or marcher though sometimes they are notes about why march or why donate. The photographs are of people at the marches as well as those preparing for them. The ephemera includes postcards, stickers, and other collateral handed out ahead of or during a march. Testimonials accompanied some posters while others were submitted on their own. They are longer-form pieces that explain the reasoning or philosophy of the marcher or are reflections upon the march. Some of these materials reveal a network of sisterhood. For example photos and testimonial from one marcher in San Francisco were submitted with testimonial from another marcher who marched in Santa Rosa.

The second series contains only posters. They bear messages ranging from the political to the personal. They reflect the concerns of the marchers and include messages about women’s rights, human rights, immigration, LGBTQ issues, gender equality, Trump, federal and state government, the environment and climate change, Black Lives Matter, Unity, Community, disability, health issues, and the future. Iconography is widely varied, but some images appear frequently including fists, hearts, rainbows, peace sign, and gender symbols. Posters were constructed using of a wide variety of materials. Most were handmade with craft supplies, and some were clearly made with whatever was at hand including construction scraps. Other posters in this series were produced by individuals with professional design training and resources. One national march organizer provided digital files for local use so similar or like items appeared at more than one march.

The third series, Media Coverage, was collected at the same time as the posters. It is mostly local to the San Francisco Bay Area and covers topics from the marches themselves to the creation of pussy hats and posters, to the poster collecting efforts by the Sutro Library and others.

The fourth series, Artifacts, includes pussy hats and other garments, pin-back buttons, and a book. The pussy hats are both the traditional pink and also a hand-knit rainbow LGBTQ pussy hat. There are three improvised garments that could be characterized as sandwich boards made of fabric (pillowcases in two cases). These garments bear messages just like the posters. There are also three sashes in the style of beauty pageant sashes, each bearing a message. One is homemade while two appear to be printed. The book, donated by San Francisco State University Professor Suzanne Pullen, is Why We March: Signs of Protest: Voices from the Women’s march. It includes photos of Women’s Marches all over the United States and the world, including some of the California marches represented in this collection.

Biographical / historical:

The Women's March was a worldwide protest that happened on January 21, 2017. Marches occurred across California, the United States, and the world. Held the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the event drew millions of people, and photographs of posters from the march were immediately circulated on social media as well as traditional media. Marchers were advocating for a multitude of issues including women's rights, human rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, LGBTQ rights, gender equality, racial equality, freedom of religion, workers' rights, and the environment and climate change.

Acquisition information:
The Sutro Library solicited Women's March materials in a variety of ways. Two weeks before the Marches occurred, Mattie Taormina, Director, Sutro Library, California State Library, posted a message in each California city's Women's March Facebook page soliciting participants to donate their posters after the March concludes. She also posted several messages on the app NextDoor to her local community's bulletin board alerting people to the possibility of donating items post-March. Additionally, a message was sent to Calix (listserv for all California public libraries and librarians) and west_arch (listserv for California archives and archivists) with the same information. This process was repeated again a few days before the Marches occurred. On the day of the Marches, the Director picked up abandoned posters after the San Francisco March and approached people on BART to see if they would be willing to donate their posters. Simultaneously, friends of the Director solicited people at Marches in Los Angeles, Orange County, and Sacramento. Monica Rivas, a staff member at the California State Library in Sacramento, stood outside the State Library with a large bin and asked people to donate their signs. A day after the Marches occurred, the Director posted a message again asking people to donate their march materials using the above mentioned methods. Many items came in from all over California via US post. The Director personally collected from individual’s homes in Palo Alto and along the San Francisco Peninsula. Further donations came in from around the Bay Area as word about the archive spread. These items were dropped off at the Sutro Library reference desk or given to staff directly.
Arrangement:

The collection is arranged in four series: Series 1 Attachments, Photos, Ephemera, and Testimonials, Series 2 Posters, Series 3 Artifacts, and Series 4 Media Coverage.

Series 1 is described at a folder level. The folder titles were assigned by the archivist to identify and describe the contents. The folders are arranged alphabetically by location of the related March with material from unidentified locations filed at the end of the series. Some of the material goes with specific posters in the collection having either been attached to the poster upon donation or donated separately; that connection is recorded in the folder title. Also, some material is tangentially related to specific posters in the collection and that connection is recorded in the folder title. Some material is not connected to any specific posters.

Series 2 is described at the item level and are arranged by size. Titles are the message that appears on the poster. The posters were inventoried and then boxed based on size and so the poster (item) numbers are not sequential.

Series 3 is described at an item level. Titles are bibliographic entries including publications, headline, date, author, and précis.

Series 4 is also described at an item level and are arranged by format and/or size. Titles were assigned by the archivist to identify and describe the item.

Any series that contains non-California material includes that non-California material at the end.

Access and use

Location of this collection:
SFSU - J. Paul Leonard Library
1630 Holloway Ave, Room 610
San Francisco, CA 94132-4030, US
Contact:
(415) 469-6100
sutro@library.ca.gov
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